You will sit

But Scoe, are you really going to sit here and talk about what we didn't get out of our late first rd and late 2nd rd picks? Nobody thought Lee, Perkins and Howard were sleepers; those are guys like JJ, drafted late and SURPRISE!! Remember Lee was Zekes 3rd pick in that draft. Those GM's that you think are better than Joe, go look at their draft history and you'll see that they're all about the same. Guys like Sharpe are High Risk (without actually risking anything) and High Reward, and Joe actually does pretty good in that dept, Memo, JJ, Amir are examples of that, go show me 2 other GM's that have three 2nd rounders in the league contributing on NBA teams.

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I'm going to go on a rant. As Roscoe mentioned earlier, drafting isn't the problem with Joe, it's developing his talent. He keeps thinking he's running a middle school team where guys vets, with poor talent, but fast motors and attitude play over up and comers with a little maturity problems.

We don't keep these guys because we don't play them, and they don't want to come back. Guys thought Delfino had a bad attitutde because he didn't like sitting with Flip. Do you think Skiles puts up with bad attitudes? You play hard, and you're good, you play. period. His problem with vets is he'll play outperforming youngsters over guys with reps, we've playing guys with reps since day one.

The only reason Jonas got any PT (which he deserved) was because of injuries. And the one time Joe decides to play the rook, he's making a mistake and dumps the better performing vet in CB.

Joe needs to stop talking about accepting being on the bench and start with what you need to get on the court. JMax seems the epitome of what Joe preaches, but JMax is helping no one win a title.

Maybe that's the real reason he's asking the question; to identify who has the drive to compete. I do this sort of questioning all the time when I'm interviewing candidates for open positions. You usually can learn much more about a person with indirect questioning.

Yes, Darko may be the biggest blunder of Joe's GM career. But 4 out of those 6 are pretty good players. I think Joe does better in the draft than most people give him credit. Remove the Darko mistake, and he's got a VERY GOOD track record.

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Looking at the value Joe got for the pick, he's batting 500, Daye seems too early to tell, but looks good, Stuckey is fine for where he was drafted, JMax and Darko were both drafted too high, but Darko still has the better upside. Tayshaun was a steal for his position, and RW was a mega bust, but that draft had several mega busts, including Curry and Kwame.

The problem is looking not at value for pick, but can these guys start in the NBA, Joe drafted two starters who couldn't get PT here, couldn't wait to get out of Detroit, and are now helping other teams

Rodney White finally found success with the Zhejiang Lions in China. Head coach Wang Fei and Assistant Liu Quan Sheng were able to mold him into the player he is today. Poor coaching may have doomed Rodney.

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I was going to mention this.
Wang Fei has really helped Rodney become a solid contributor.

Guys seriously, we just came off a run where we had 6 legit chances to get to the NBA finals. How many perrinial contenders draft and develop young talent that become starters and rotation players during their run??? And 16Mile save me with that __________, Delfino was out of the league 2 seasons ago, Darko will be gone this year, neither of those guys ever did what they needed to do while they were here.

You know why JJ played? Because when he finally hit the court he made it impossible to take him off the court. Darko and Delfino BOTH had that window open up and neither of them did what JJ did, or what Tayshaun did, or what Will Bynum did. That window of opportunity comes for every player at some point and time, you better make the most of it because it may be your one and only shot.

To be fair, Delfino and Darko never got a chance to start due to someone's injury.

KG, I pretty much owned the argument about second rounders which in itself was a diversion from the topic of this thread, but it seems we're going even further from what Joe does during interviews, and whether it is wise or productive.

Which is all the more reason why the 7th pick will not be a bad one unless the front office whiffs on it. The talent outside the top 6 will probably still yield at least a couple NBA starters, and maybe even an all-star.

Hey, love this board. After most Pistons games I visit another board to get the average fan reaction, then come here to get a breakdown and analysis of what actually happened.

In any case, wanted to add my two cents to this.

Saying Joe D. is bad at drafting is one of the BIGGEST MYTHS in sports. When you compare him to other executives he's easily top ten and maybe top 5. He's ONLY had three bad picks in a decade. During that era most teams have had many, many more bad picks.

Besides a few 2nd rounders (which fail 90%+ of the time anyway) every single player since Darko has met or exceeded their draft status, which is incredible. That's since 2003.

Below is how many PPG his picks have averaged for their careers and in parenthesis how many PPG other players picked at that spot have averaged. The data goes back to 1998.

He has had only three bad picks, all early in his career. He hasn't had anything close to a bad pick since Darko, which was 7 years ago.

Of course the young guys, like Stuckey, Jerebko, Amir, Daye, Delfino and Afflalo are all going to improve their career averages a lot, making those picks look even better.

Basically, Dumars got off to a mixed start, but has been nailing the draft lately.

An interesting note is that Stuckey (who we basically got for Darko of course) is already averaging more ppg than the average #2 pick.

Also, I think the Cleaves pick came only about 2 weeks after he was hired, so that's a little tough to pin on him.

Moreover, since 2003 the only players drafted outside of the top 5 who are even close to stars are Brandon Roy at #6, Al Jefferson at #15 (no All-Stars though), and Rondo at #21, all of whom were drafted before the Pistons 1st pick. And none of them are likely the type you can build a team around, although Rondo is looking like he could develop into that type of player.

I might be missing some info here, but look at the drafts of some of the better teams since Dumars has been drafting. In that time the Mavs have only drafted 1 good player, Josh Howard, then a bunch of terrible players. The Lakers have had one really good pick, Andrew Bynum, then a few good picks like Walton, Vujajacic and Von Wafer. The Suns have 1 All-Star in Amare, one good player in Barbosa and a bunch of nobodies. The Jazz have one All-Star in Derron Williams, an excellent pick in Millsap, an ok pick in Ronnie Brewer (#14), a few very avg. players then I think 3-4 first round picks that are not even in the league anymore. The Rockets have Yao Ming, then their next best draft pick is probably Aaron Brooks or Luis Scola. The best organization in basketball has been the Spurs. They have one All-Star in Tony Parker, then their next best pick is Goerge Hill.

I'm not saying Joe D. is great at drafting, but when you hold the same light to other executives, he's definitely not bad and actually pretty good.